Beloved and enjoy themselves

  

In a moment he saw them, far away, driving the biggest ox the youth had ever seen. When they drew near, Tritill killed it, Litill took out its heart for the young man to cook, and both began quickly to turn the horns into drinking cups. The work went merrily on, and they talked gaily, and the young man told his friends of the payment promised him by the ogress if he had done her bidding. The old men warned him that he must ask her for the chest which stood at the foot of her bed, for whatever lay on the top of the bed, and for what lay under the side of the cave. The young man thanked them for their counsel, and Tritill and Litill then took leave of him, saying that for the present he would need them no more.

Scarcely had they disappeared when the ogress came back, and found everything ready just as she had ordered. Before she sat down to eat the bullock’s heart she turned to the young man, and said: ‘You did not do that all alone, my friend; but, nevertheless, I will keep my word, and to-morrow you shall go your way.’ So they went to bed and slept till dawn.
awoke the young man, and called to him to choose any three things out of her house.

‘I choose,’ answered he, ‘the chest which stands at the foot of your bed; whatever lies on the top of the bed, and whatever is under the side of the cave.’

‘You did not choose those things by yourself, my friend,’ said the ogress; ‘but what I have promised, that will I do.’

And then she gave him his reward.

‘The thing which lay on the top of the bed’ turned out to be the lost princess. ‘The chest which stood at the foot of the bed’ proved full of gold and precious stones; and ‘what was under the side of the cave’ he found to be a great ship, with oars and sails that went of itself as well on land as in the water. ‘You are the luckiest man that ever was born,’ said the ogress as she went out of the cave as usual.